The Butterfly Effect of Racing: Why Motorsport Is Won by Everything You Can’t Control and What It Means for Devlin and Larsen

Let’s break down why they are the future of world motorsport

Money Is King

In the environment, where money and money alone rule not only in motorsports, but any sport, and, pretty much, any aspect of life, it’s easy to accept it and forget, that there’s more beyond that. We see the drivers who are leading various high-end championships, and we think - oh, yes, they must be good. And indeed, they are good. The question I always asked was why we only see maximum 2 or 3 people fighting for the championship, surely there are way more drivers who would be capable not only to fight them, but to beat them? And oh boy, of course there are. But the world will never hear bout them, because they don’t have millions to reach even the ranks of F2. 

Motorsport is a complex sport. It is probably the most complicated one, with thousands of variables that must come together to win a single race, let alone the championship. Everything from how fast the driver is by outright pace, to unpredictable variables such as gust of wind, patch of oil on track, sudden strategy change caused by safety car, mechanical failure of a 5 dollar sensor, and even the mood of an engineer, who may be cross with the driver for not cleaning his visor in time. And note that I haven’t listed a single variable that would be dependant on money. And if I did, you’d finish reading this article in June at best. 

And now, lets recalibrate what we know. We know that driver is not the most important part, that there are thousands of variables that all need to come together to win, and that’s motorsport combines huge complications of the team sport, that increase exponentially with the human factor of each team member; and mechanical factors, most of which can’t be controlled by humans at all. With all that information - recalibrate again. What does it truly take to win? 

Butterfly effect

To illustrate my previous assumptions, let’s have a look at the case. Rockingham, 2012, Formula Renault. Around 30 cars on track in same class, it’s windy, it’s semi-oval, and everyone is nervous. You need to take a standing start on the banking (inclined surface), and it takes a special skill to do so, since your outside wheels have way less grip that your inside wheels, and as soon as you you release the clutch, the car is trying to spin you round. There are 2 solutions, you either apply less power to avoid spinning, which means you have a less effective acceleration, or you do what I did and point the car very slightly to the left, towards the left, to start very slightly downhill. It’s risky, because you can be penalised for out-of-position start, but if you practice enough, even 1 degree of rotation can make a huge difference. 

Lights out - boom - I take the best start, 0-100 in 2.1 seconds - the best 0-100 recorded in a Formula Renault, a 192 bhp car. Everything looks good. We set up a car, we nailed the start, we are ready for the changing conditions. A million pieces of a puzzle came together. We are in a podium position, it looks goo… “F*ck!!! I have damage, I have damage” - I scream over the radio. “What’s happened?” - an ever calm voice of an engineer, who always sounds so calm it feels like he’s lived through Armageddon itself and, from now on, can’t be worried with literally anything. “That idiot just f**ing smashed into me!” - I scream - “I can see I have damage, half of my rear wing disintegrated”. The end. 

And just like that, it ends. A million puzzles missed one, that was out of your control. You can explain the reasons to anyone you like - the sponsors, the fans, but the outcome is set, someone else won, and you didn’t. I come back into the paddock, furious, red faced, I am an impersonation of anger itself. “Are you f**ing taking a piss???” - I scream at the neighbour garage where my offender is located. Both teams burst in laughter, like I just said the funnies ever joke in a history of mankind. They laugh so hard they almost cry. “Ivan, Ivan, calm down for a second” - I have a feeling it’s not me who should be calming down, but I’m so confused I just await what’s gonna happen in a moment, my inner berserk is trying to get hold of me but I’m telling him he’s not allowed to because I will lose my licence - and I wait. “Listen, listen, we’re sorry, but you know name of another driver who crashed into me got very upset before the start and lost concentration. Just before he was to head to the grid, he saw his father shouting at mechanics and he thought something was wrong, so he became angry, since he thought there was a problem with the car just before the start”. “Why would I care?” - I shouted back. But since there was nothing to do for me for the rest of the day apart from watching how the mechanics repair my car, I asked what happened. “Nothing happened” - they said. “His dad went to the toilet, came out with wet shoes, slipped and fell down. Just screamed with anger.” I couldn’t believe what I just heard. I lost a podium because my rival’s dad went for a piss, stepped into someone else’s piss, slipped in garage, screamed, while his son thought he was screaming cos they discovered a problem, got mad, lost concentration and crashed into me. “You truly are taking a f**ing piss” - that’s all I could say. 

The butterfly flies back

Keep reading. It’s long, but necessary to understand the essence of racing and what we are all doing here. 

There is an opposite situation, when you try to tame the fate and control it. That’s what a true motorsport master would try and do - not always succeed, but when they do, it just looks glorious. Another example. GT3 weekend at Brands Hatch, same ol’ 2012. Qualifying, around 5 minutes remain, we’re sitting mid-field. Final tyre change, final push. I’m not driving. A driver pits, they change tyres. Chris, the engineer, walks around the car, opens the bonnet. “F**k! We have a leak, we have a f**ing leak! Damn! We have only 5 minutes left!” Chris and mechanics start arguing, quite loudly. The driver starts to climb out of the car, visibly angry. “No! Get back in! We need to try and improve!” - we hear Chris in a heart-rending scream. “How the f**k can I improve with a mechanical failure?” - obvious response. But Chris is persuasive, he literally pushes the driver back into the car, waving him to drive off. Wheelspin, and in a moment he’s back out on track. “Why did you send him out?” - I asked Chris. He smiles and says - “Do you see a liquid on a floor?”. I look at the floor. I can’t see anything. “I faked it. He drives a lot faster when he’s angry. It gets him in the zone.” 3 minutes later, we are on the front row. 

I’m not trying to entertain you. I’m writing this so you would ask yourself a question - what does it TRULY take to win? What if there was another engineer and not Chris, and we qualified 10th instead of front row? What if he didn’t feel confident going into the race because of the alleged lack of pace? Someone else won, someone else got the sponsorship for the future? And that is given that all other million factors - the car, the setup, every gust of wind - remained the same. Just one, non-trivial fact, such as engineer knowing how to fake a problem to get into a driver’s head, and not over-do it, decided everything. 

Today we gather under the banners of madness

As Ozzy used to say - “Let the madness begin”! What we’re doing now, can’t really be called anything else. In previous 2 cases, a million pieces stayed the same, and only 1 change decided whether you win or lose. And it happens EVERY time, every race. Verstappen, Schumacher, Senna, Prost, Mansell, Fittipaldi (I could go on forever) didn’t become legends because they were the best drivers. The became the best because they could master the factors others couldn’t. And that it is also why I never take part in questionnaires asking who the GOAT is, because there isn’t. There is small number of drivers and teams who managed to pull everything together and adapt in the quest to conquer all negative externalities and turn them into positive. 

I’m gonna give you a 100 perfectly aligned chain of a hundred fragile variables from the top of my head, where even the irrelevant-seeming human details can tilt the outcome. I bet I can name at least 10 thousand of them.

1. Quality of the driver’s sleep the night before

2. Waiter’s unwashed hands giving driver digestion discomfort, which matters more than people think

3. Hydration level before the race

4. A distracting personal message received pre-race

5. Argument with partner that sits at the back of a mind

6. Overconfidence after a strong qualifying

7. Under-confidence after a mistake in practice

8. Subconscious fear after a recent crash

9. Mental fatigue from travel/jet lag

10. Hormonal fluctuations affecting focus

11. Music or routine disruption before the race

12. Pressure from media expectations

13. Internal team politics affecting trust

14. Driver’s belief in the strategy call

15. A tiny lapse in concentration at the wrong moment

16. Team principal’s emotional state that day

17. Engineer-driver relationship tension

18. A mechanic of a rival team having a bad day mentally and forgetting a wheel gun on your drive way

19. Communication tone over radio

20. Confidence level within the garage

21. Team morale after previous race result

22. Internal disagreements on setup direction

23. A last-minute rushed decision due to pressure

24. Overconfidence leading to risky strategy

25. Hesitation in making a bold call

26. A new team member not fully integrated yet

27. Fatigue of pit crew after long travel schedule causing 0.001 degree mistake in camber calibration

28. Leadership clarity during chaotic moments

29. Subtle blame culture vs supportive culture

30. Trust in data vs intuition balance

31. A sensor connector not fully secured

32. Slight miscalibration of rear toe-in

33. Wheel nut being marginally off

34. A mechanic forgetting a spare $5 sensor which breaks down before quali

35. Dirt or debris in a tiny mechanical part

36. Software glitch in telemetry feed

37. Delay in data reaching the pit wall

38. A misread number in a data sheet

39. Slight delay in pit stop release signal

40. Pit board visibility issue

41. Radio button sticking 

42. Calibration drift in brake or throttle sensors

43. Tire blanket temperature inconsistency

44. Small error in fuel calculation due to the changed air humidity/wind direction

45. A dropped nail in front of the tyre just before you drive out

46. Cooling duct slightly obstructed

47. A mechanic’s phone slipping out of his pocket into the cockpit 

48. Human fatigue reducing precision by 1%

49. Timing system lag affecting decisions

50. Miscommunication of one word

51. Radio interference at a key moment

52. Engineer choosing slightly wrong wording

53. Driver misunderstanding tone or urgency

54. Delay in relaying weather updates

55. Confusion between two similar strategy codes

56. Overloading driver with too much information

57. Not giving enough information at a critical time

58. Late call due to hesitation

59. Wrong assumption about competitor strategy

60. Misinterpretation of tire data

61. The sun coming out at the wrong moment, blinding you just before breaking point

62. Track temperature changing by half degree, affecting car behaviour

63. Wind gust affecting braking point

64. Slight drizzle that doesn’t show on radar yet

65. Rubber pickup off-line

66. Dirt blown onto track from another car

67. Track evolution being slightly misjudged

68. Timing of traffic during out-lap

69. A marshal reacting slower/faster than expected

70. Shadows affecting visual references

71. Another driver making an unexpected mistake ahead

72. A backmarker defending harder than usual

73. A competitor’s pit stop error

74. Safety car deployed 10 seconds earlier/later

75. Yellow flag appearing just before a fast lap

76. A tiny lock-up damaging tire life

77. A piece of debris hitting the car harmlessly (or not, but you don’t know that while doing 250 kph)

78. Belts misplaced while driving and hurting your balls (very painful)

79. A slight delay that avoids a bigger incident

80. Being released into clean air vs traffic

81. Media question affecting driver mindset

82. Social media noise before the race

83. Sponsor presence adding pressure

84. Family being present (positive or distracting?)

85. A casual comment from a rival driver

86. Crowd noise affecting focus 

87. National expectations weighing on performance

88. A pre-race routine being interrupted

89. Travel logistics issues before the weekend

90. Jet lag not fully adapted

91. Gloves slightly less comfortable than usual

92. Seat fit being 1% off

93. Helmet visor clarity in certain light

94. Slight discomfort in neck or back

95. Timing of energy intake during race weekend

96. Drink system not working perfectly

97. Sweat affecting grip on wheel or blinding you

98. Micro-adjustments in steering feel

99. Fractional delay in reaction time

100. And finally - throttle being stuck open, ending your career in less than a second.

And with that in mind, let’s recalibrate what we now know and where we’re headed. We know that success is dependant on thousands of factors in one race alone; we left out factors of preparation, dozens of people within the team, and around a million of other factors. Now, just by thinking logically, tell yourself, what is the chance of sim-racer of not only making it to the real grid, but becoming successful? I’m not good at maths (that’s exactly why I’m the driver and not the engineer), but I suspect that number would be so low, we’d have to search for it under the carpet. 

Drive to succeed: why I believe the likes of Larsen and Devlin can make it happen

Ha! You though this article was about them. Maybe it is, maybe it is not. I said numerous times to all my drivers (and some of their parents) - you don’t need to assure me that you’re faster than others. I watch racing from a very different perspective and note things which even parents of my drivers will never notice. I bear in mind thousands of factors and I know that the final result is rarely an indication, yet it is the most important factor for the future. 

And in this wild attempt to combine what you can control with what you can’t, I will make a statement which no rational human being would make. I believe both Devlin and Larsen have what it takes. I believe they can become legends in open wheel and tin tops respectively. 

1 race by each of them made me write this whole article. For Charlie, it was the latest race of the BSRC (British Sim Race Cup), where he was taken out while leading, dropped to 17th, and managed to win. For those who are not familiar with that championship - do not think you could do the same. It is one of the most competitive series, where circuits and cars change weekly. The level of drivers is extremely high, few of which also race in real life quite successfully. I was watching that race, almost broke my TV when Charlie was spun round by a championship leader. I then saw that the top 4 cars working together, not fighting, just saving fuel and keeping in line. Charlie was P17, slowly making his way up. In short, he was only 1 of 2 cars in the field who managed to save enough fuel to do the full race without refuelling, and in addition to that - pass 15 cars on track, and catch up his offender to finish just 4 seconds behind him in the end. I wasn’t sure if the winner would get a penalty, but thanks to the right decision of the stewards he did, promoting Charlie to the well deserved victory. The point of this is not the result itself, it’s the way it was achieved. Remember the Brands Hatch example, where we tried to understand how to control what you seemingly can’t control? The reason I started truly believing in a kid who was as nervous driving in a 24H of Silverstone last year as a most of us are when we approach our crush, is because he seems to understand how to control more pieces of a puzzle than others. 

I asked his father, Den, if he advised him to stay calm and keep going. “No, he said, I left him to do his job.” And that what impressed me. He has it in him, he doesn’t need to be reminded. I love that. I wanna work with that guy. 

Same goes to Mr Larsen, who’s winning iRacing SF top splits left right and centre. The raw speed is not enough to impress me or anyone else who’s understanding of motorsport exceeds zero. Tim has raw pace, yes, but what’s more important is that he’s able to control what’s going on around him, as shown in Hockenheim, where he avoided 2 incidents on lap 1, which even I wouldn’t have. Something we call AWARENESS is a term, which, if mastered, will mitigate about thousands potential hiccups we discussed in our little hiccups taster list before. 

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/da54fb_5bbbfe3a8f424980b2ab15a3acd1409b/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I hope you now see where I’m going with it. The foundational matter in success is not raw pace - it’s how many factors you can learn to control. And that’s not the skill I can teach them. They either have it or not. These 2 do. And if they don’t make it, I can always blame 1 of a million factors.

We are all madmen believing we can master the endless number of variables. But we are the same in doing so. Let’s see what the future brings!